The present disclosure relates to a home bar and a refrigerator including the home bar.
Refrigerators are home appliances used for keeping food at a low temperature. For this, a storage room is formed in a refrigerator, and the storage room can be accessed through a door. The storage room is kept at a low temperature by taking heat from the storage room using a refrigerant so that food can be kept fresh in the storage room.
Due to changes in dietary life and well-being trends, consumers prefer larger, multi-functional refrigerators, and various convenient refrigerators have been introduced in the market.
Recently, consumers prefer home-bar refrigerators that have a home-bar door attached to an opening formed through a refrigerator door. Food stored in the home-bar refrigerator can be easily accessed through the home-bar door without having to open the refrigerator door. In addition, power consumption can be reduced when the home-bar door is used.
In general, hinges are installed on both sides of the home-bar door for allowing a user to open the home-bar door by rotating the home-bar door. The hinges can be fixed in the home-bar door using an insulating material filled in the home-bar door or additional fastening members. The use of the insulating material is still necessary in the case where the hinges are fixed using additional fastening members.
Ends of the hinges protruding from the home-bar door are coupled to a frame disposed around the opening of the refrigerator door so that the home-bar door can be rotated on the refrigerator door.
Dampers can be included in the hinges to decelerate the home-bar door when the home-bar door is opened. In this case, the home-bar door can be smoothly opened.
However, the related-art home-bar door has the following disadvantages.
When the hinges are damages or broken, the hinges cannot be selectively repaired. That is, in this case, the whole home-bar door or the refrigerator door may be replaced.
In detail, since the hinges fixed to the home-bar door are covered with the insulating material filled in the home-bar door, the hinges cannot be detached from the home-bar door for maintenance. Thus, the whole home-bar door may be replace when the hinges are damaged or broken.
Moreover, if the home-bar door is configured not to be detached from the refrigerator for maintenance, the whole refrigerator door should be replaced when the hinges are damaged or broken.
As explained above, it is difficult and takes much money to repair the related-art home-bar door.